A new station was added to the middle of Tampa Bay as part of an upgrade to the National Ocean Service Tampa Bay PORTS system on Oct 3. This station is collecting Meteorological Optical Range (visibility), primary wind speed, direction, and gust, redundant wind speed, direction, and gust, air temperature, relative humidity and barometric pressure. RDI bottom mounted currents will be added shortly. This station transmits in real time through GOES every six minutes. Data from this station is now available HERE. Parties involved during the development and deployment of the system were: Jeff Scudder, Mark Luther, Brad Wynn (NOS TB PORTS manager), and Chris McGrath (NOS Chesapeake Instrument Lab). Installation was completed from the Sea Sub 1 with logistical support provided by Sea Sub Systems, Inc.

A new buoy deployed this month by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) in Old Tampa Bay collects continuous water quality information to help researchers learn more about conditions that trigger harmful algal blooms."This buoy fills an important gap in Tampa Bay monitoring efforts," said Alina Corcoran, who heads harmful algal bloom research at the FWC. "It collects data autonomously, allowing us to gather data without having to go out into the field, and we can communicate to the buoy remotely." Read full story here.  

USF Ocean Circulation Group (OCG)

Next generation observing system deployed on landmark cruise. The USF OCG maintains the offshore portion of the Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System (COMPS) on the west Florida shelf. Their September 2013 cruise marked the 75th COMPS mooring cruise during which our next generation telemetry system was deployed at their C10 site. In a time of scarce funding the OCG has pushed forward with a more flexible logger and telemetry design, taking a systems engineering approach utilizing off-the-shelf electronics combined with in-house engineering and fabrication capabilities to produce what should be a more reliable and lower cost system for monitoring the ocean in real time. The system is built on the proven Campbell Scientific CR1000 logger and TX312 GOES transmitter which log and transmit CTD, ADCP and wind data in near real-time. The wind sensor was built in-house, with a Gill Windsonic and Honeywell compass combined in a custom housing, with all sampling controlled via the programmable CR1000 logger. Additional barometric pressure and relative humidity sensors have been tested and are to be deployed in the coming months, requiring only a software modification to the logger to add to the sensor suite. The system was designed to allow for even more sensors and the OCG invites collaboration with other interested parties in need of a platform for their particular research interests.

Nick Shay, University of Miami wins the SECOORA High Frequency Radar (HFR) Waves Project Award 

SECOORA would like to announce a new Wave Project and congratulate Nick Shay from the University of Miami for winning the award. The object of this applied research project is to demonstrate the capability of HFR to produce realistic significant wave height (SWH) data. This data is in high demand from a variety of stakeholders including the National Weather Forecast Offices Nortek, a private sector SECOORA member. The researcher will deploy a Nortek AWAC, a subsurface wave measuring device, in the WERA radar footprint off of south Miami in the Florida straits. The AWAC wave measurements will be used to evaluate WERA HFR derived SWH measurements. SECOORA has WERAs deployed in three locations around the SE. If the project is successful SECOORA hopes to be able to provide not only surface current data, but also wave data from these radar systems. "This project is really exciting for all of us because of the potential cost savings. If wave data can be collected from the WERA HFR systems, then the need for buoys and other wave measuring devices will be eliminated in areas covered by those systems. Our limited funding for observation systems can then be directed to address other data gaps. It also demonstrates a great collaboration with the private sector and National Weather Service. It's a real win-win for everyone." said Debra Hernandez, SECOORA Executive Director.

Debra presented a talk titled "SECOORA's Regional Coastal Observing System: Providing Critical Marine Weather Data and Information Products for Weather Forecasters and the Marine Community" at the National Weather Association annual meeting from Oct. 12-17. Then another poster titled "Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association Data Management System: Fostering Data Access and Visualization of Coastal Observations in the Southeast US" was displayed at the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) 2013 Conference held in San Diego, CA, November 3-7.